Official fishing and hunting thread

[VANOS714]

[naplesE30]

I am stepping up from the old zebco 33 and just bought my first bait casting setup. I am going to try to start doing more serious bass fishing now that my son is 9and absolutely loves to fish. We fish mostly small ponds on the golf course that we live on. The last few times out he landed a few 12” large mouths on the only bites we had. We have mostly just used plastic worms. However, I plan to start building a legitimate tackle box with him in the next few months. Any advice is appreciated.

[mrsleeve]

I assume you got one of the fancy spaceship looking low profile reels right..... Have you messed with a baitcaster before??? Your going to birds nest that thing many many times till you learn how to use it well... I have been using one almost exclusively for traditional spin cast since I was 12 and still get one occasionally.

Tip the 1st, Follow the manufacturers instructions on how to set the mechanical break, I normally set mine so that when the bait is free spooled to the ground from about 7 feet in the air the spool back lashes about 3 turns, you will want to brake set so that when the bait stops the spool stops, and the bait falls slowly to the ground when you release it. The way I do it I get 20 to 30% more distance on casts, BUT I have to thumb break the spool all the way through the cast other wise you get a backlash before the bait is 10 feet away becasue the spool is spinning faster than the bait is traveling to take the line away.

Tip the 2ed, When you learning keep your mag brake set to almost max force to help keep the over speed thing I mentioned above from happening as your developing your technique and feel for how it all works.

Tip the 3rd, stick with heavier baits to start ( above 1/4oz) think 3/8 oz spinner baits and bigger jerk baits, this will help keep line take away up with spool speed as you learn, and not have a light 1/8oz jig get caught in the breeze. NO BOBBERS unless using a slip bobber rig.

Tip the 4th, When the birds nest happens, pull the main line out till stops, look in the spool and find where the line over wraps it self, take your fingers, a pair of tweezers and grab that loop and pull it out, then pull the main line back out until you find the next loop over the main line. Some times you might need a small 90* O ring pick to help get tightly wrapped backlash loops freed up.

Tip the 4th B know when to give up and just cut the mess out and re-spool the whole thing, as well as re-spool when you start to get a lot of line damage from the back lashes. If your worried about line cost of the steep learning curve, you can wrap enough electrical tape on your spool (take it out of the real to do this) to take up about 1/3 to 1/2 the line capacity and then put your line on top of that, until your not not having to change line every other fishing trip, a lot of the "pros" do similar things because they change their line out every other day or so, and you want to have the spool full as thats where you get your best retrieve rates and torque Vs the bottom half of the spool.

Hope that helps some, learning one of these set ups can be very frustrating at 1st, but after awhile I can hit almost any hole, gap and even skip back under cover (this takes perfect timing with the thumb and fancy settings with brakes to work for yourself, as how I do is totally different than a buddy of mine and we cant skip baits with the others set ups) they can be so precise its amazing. You will learn to love them if your willing to deal with the time it takes to become proficient with them, in 27 years I still have a hard time with the traditional over the shoulder over head cast with a bait caster but I can toss 3/8oz spinner bait 70+ feet into a hole in a weed bed with a mere flick of the wrist side arm.....

[naplesE30]

Thanks for the detailed reply Sleeve! I am excited to get started with baitcasting. All my fishing experience growing up was either for bluegill/crappie or ultra light spinner/fly fishing for trout...... so this is a whole new world for me.

I did get a spaceship looking setup..... just a middle of the road Johnny Morris carbon lite combo in medium heavy with fast action . Figured it would be easy to exchange at the local BPS of it were to break (they have always treated me right, especially with their own brand products).

For line I am starting out with 20lb braid Power Pro. I anticipate mostly worm/jig fishing and can tie on a 10lb fluorocarbon leader for other applications if needed. The pole/reel should come in the mail tomorrow, so I am looking forward setting it up, and playing around with it.

[Exodus_2pt0]

Got one so far this year. We are in pre rut now so hoping to get a buck soon!